Hey Scott,
Thanks for answering my blog questions. If you don't mind, I have a
couple more (you really should bring back the Feedbag!)
1) Who do you think had the best dropkick in the business? I'd have to
say Curt Hennig or Bob Holly. How about the worst? I love Bret Hart
but his dropkick was always awkward looking.
2) Reading your Wrestlemania re-posts is kind of depressing when you
reflect on the loves of a lot of the wrestlers after they retire (the
Liz and Savage reunion at WM7 really inspired this question). Are
there any real Happily Ever After stories in wrestling? The closest I
can think of is Tito Santana (happily married, decent life) and Lance
Storm (got out of the biz on his terms). Maybe Bruno Sammartino but I
know wrestling hurt his relationship with his son for a long time,
though.
The Feedbags were kind of a chore to write, to be honest, and I prefer quicker bite-sized posts.
1. The best currently is Randy Orton, although Bob Holly had a hell of a dropkick when he was around. Jim Brunzell and Greg Gagne of course are legendary for theirs, and in Gagne’s case it’s one of the few moves he didn’t suck at. For the bad, Erik Watts of course threw one so hideous that I actually named a scale of bad dropkicks on it (I did a quick check on Youtube but couldn’t find anything – the dropkick he throws against Steve Williams at Starrcade 92 is the offender you’re looking for). Usually guys who were bad at them were smart enough to filter them out of their moveset, though, so you don’t see that many bad ones on an ongoing basis.
2. The Rock, man, The Rock. Went out of wrestling as the biggest star in the business and then moved to Hollywood and now he makes $20 million a picture doing family comedies and he could buy and sell the entire WWE himself if he had a mind to do so. I’d also lump Trish Stratus in there as well, as she went out at the peak of her career, with her dignity fully intact, and does quite well for herself now as well. Although I don’t think she’s on Facebook anymore, which kind of bums me out.
for question one I will go with Brad Armstrong (I’m southern and a little biased sue me) as for question 2 yeah the Rock is would be top on that list but Goldberg has also made a really decent life for himself away from the bussnise but I think the questioner meant more on the lines of happy romantic life and near as I can tell Lance Storm is pretty much it.
ROCK LOVE ROCK LOVE ROCK LOVE
You can never have too much Rock love, guys.
Not to hijack, but this was beyond awesome:
sorry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrThcMKfzvQ
Trish is still on Facebook. She updated her status 28 minutes ago.
Patricia Anne Stratigias It’s Wrestlelicious baby.
Trish has a myspace account and a WWE Universe account, not (to my knowledge) a facebook account. I could be wrong, but I believe she posted a blog saying that any facebook account is fake. Her official blog is:
http://www.myspace.com/trishstratus
Dusty Rhodes also had a pretty horrendous dropkick. Mark Jindrak had a pretty good one and also, Hawk and Jim Neidhard had surprisingly good standing dropkicks that they would bust out every now and then.
Also, does Brock Lesnar count as a happily ever after story? Got out when he was the biggest thing going and is poised to dominate another sport.
The Erik Watts Dropkick (yes capitalized) is on one of the latest Botchamania’s, although I can’t recall which one.
Scott are you a fan of Botchamania?
The Erik Watts Dropkick is on Botchamania 65 at approx. the 5:30 mark. Pretty frigging awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfZeRRIMBU8
I have never seen the infamous Erik Watts dropkick before. So I always assumed it was pretty bad. But having seen the video, it seems like Williams ran into it before Watts achieved full extension.
Rock just got divorced from his wife/business manager, aka the brains who marketed him right. So his home life is sadly broken.
And Race to Witch Mountain was a disappointment. He’s been trying to do the whole Arnold Schwartzenegger-muscle-bound-but family-friendly except in action movies schtick. This didn’t help.
I think the initial returns on Rock were very high; no former wrestler had so much success outside of wrestling while building on their wrestling success—not even Hogan.
But now we’ve got to see how he handles this. If he has some well-loved movies soon, he’s back. If he finds a famous gf to fill his bed and the tabloids and a new manager, he’s ok. But if he has a few more flops—and, being under Disney contract, anything might happen—and if he misappears, he’s done.
Jury’s still out on Rock.
While its true that Rock is divorced, fact is that he’s making a ton of money in Hollywood, and ultimately, he doesn’t need wrestling anymore to earn a living. If he so chooses, he can come back to visit friends backstage, make a special appearence, wrestle a match, or work a short term storyline, and leave on his own terms. And he’s (presumably) still on good terms with Vince and WWE. And Trish is the same way, making a decent living hosting her own TV show and running a yoga studio.
And really, this should be the goal of all current wrestlers and those wrestlers thinking about retirement – saving up enough money and developing enough things to do outside of the ring to where they aren’t forced to crawl back to the business to earn a living.
I have to strongly disagree with the poster above. The quality of movies has nothing to do with it. The fact of the matter is, The Rock’s movies are STILL making money and The Rock is a bigger cultural icon NOW then he EVER was in WWE.
As for the divorce? He’s on happy terms with his wife. They share a child together. Who knows if that makes his life “broken”, just because they’re divorced? Maybe the marriage had been loveless for awhile, we don’t know. Maybe both are much happier seperated.
I’d throw Rob Van Dam into that list too, as he only works on his terms now, he’s in the same,if not better physical condition then he was when he worked full time, and he’s still infinitely interesting with his RVD TV and his constant advocating for medical marijuana. The dude does what he wants on his terms. That’s something to be commended, imo.
uyi:
“Who knows if that makes his life “broken”, just because they’re divorced? Maybe the marriage had been loveless for awhile, we don’t know.”
—So either a) the Rock had a bad marriage, meaning his life outside of wrestling wasn’t a happy ending; or b) he just got divorced from a happy marriage, meaning his life outside of wrestling wasn’t a happy ending.
“The Rock is a bigger cultural icon NOW then he EVER was in WWE.”
—have to disagree. The Rock in WWE was the man. In Hollywood, he’s the guy opening a movie every once in a while. Small fish, big pond.
He may get to that point one day, but he is not now. Dwayne Johnson now is lesser culturally than The Rock was in the hey day.
Umm, I was flipping channels last night and the Rock was hosting the Nickeloden Kids Choice Awards. He’s way bigger than he ever was in the WWF.
He was a big fish in the WWF’s small pond.
Now he’s a big fish in a bigger pond.
I think WWE fanboys need to get over the fact that the Rock is now bigger than wrestling and bigger than WWE. And should realize that the main reason the Rock stopped doing business with the WWE in 2003/04 was due to the Triple H and how the company was being run. Meltzer was all over it…Rocky didnt like Triple H’s reign of terror….wouldn’t put over Booker T in 2003 before WM XIX unless Booker was getting the title. So he put over Hurricane, who Triple H embarassed as soon as Rocky left.
strange enough, Bret Hart was a happy-end candidate (getting married again in 2004 and, as he stated himself being “okay”) for some time.
Except that he divorced her shortly thereafter, and now writes bitter blog posts about how terrible a person she is for stealing his dog:
http://www.brethart.com/updates/welcome-brets-new-pug-jojo
Wrestling fans must really live inside of a bubble. Simply put, The Rock is talked about MORE now that he is gone from wrestling then he ever was when he was a wrestler, and that’s just through film. The Rock’s movies are making more money then they ever did when he worked for Vince. The guy is a business all to himself. The Rock is exposed to a much wider audience now. More people know who he is then they did when he worked for Vince. I can’t even imagine how someone could argue this point. I hear about The Rock more in 2009 then I ever did in 1996-2004. Turn on the E! network, they’ll talk about him. Turn on the Kids Choice Awards, he’s hosting them. His movie commercials are all over TV. His posters are all over the place advertising the films.
And guess what? He doesn’t ever have to destroy his body for peanuts anymore. He’s MUCH better off without wrestling.
As for his marriage, I still don’t get how getting divorced from a possibly loveless marriage would prevent The Rock from falling into the “happy ending” group. You’ll have to explain that one to me. I’m pretty sure The Rock is enjoying many a beautiful woman in Hollywood now. IMO, that puts him in the “happy ending” group in more ways then one.
“And guess what? He doesn’t ever have to destroy his body for peanuts anymore. He’s MUCH better off without wrestling.”
Yeah man, f*ck pro-wrestling and it forcing people into doing it for a living and busting up their bodies. I’m sure Rock made absolutely NO money from any wrestling he ever did especially with those tiny Wrestlemania payoffs.
Totally, screw pro-wrestling no one should ever step in the ring ever it’s not worth it.
I don’t have a problem with Rock leaving wrestling and doing movies, it’s his choice. But to say he still loves the business and thanks it for everything it gave him but only if someone forces the question on him. Like he’s ashamed of the business that made him a star. Proof: go up to a random person on the street and ask them who Dwayne Johnson is, they’ll probably blank. Ask them who The Rock is and they’ll know straight off. They’ll also likely say he’s a wrestler and not an actor.
It just pisses me off as someone who’s loved wrestling since I was a kid to see someone use it and then act like he’s above it afterwards. I can’t think of many other people that were as big of pompous dicks then Rock at the Hall of Fame last year.
I didn’t know John Cena was on this board. Welcome!
The Rock’s WrestleMania payoffs are just what I said they were, PEANUTS, compared to what he makes in film. It’d be a very generous amount of money I’m sure for any of us, or even for most that still work with the E, but come on, to act like The Rock ISN’T ABOVE wrestling is totally ridiculous. The dude is BIGGER then the business. Scott’s right, after that Hogan match at WM 18, he just became too fucking big for the business.
As for The Rock acting like a dick at the HOF…HE WAS BEING THE ROCK!!! That’s what The Rock DOES.
What do you people want? Are you really hurt that The Rock won’t come back and give YOU another match? The Rock says he loves the business, he thanks it for giving him everything he has, but you say he only does this when someone ASKS him a question about it. WHEN THE HELL ELSE WOULD HE BRING IT UP? Do you want him to put up billboards of himself giving a thumbs up that say “THANK YOU VINCE AND WWE I WILL FOREVER BE IN YOUR DEBT!”.
As for walking up to strangers on the street and asking them who Dwayne Johnson is…yeah, that sounds like something that would go over well in public, lol.
I thought Ric Flair’s retirement was a happy ending. After Wrestlemania, a true legend departed from wrestling as one of the greatest legends of all time. His farewell the next night on Raw was truly tearful.
As for the Rock, I lost a lot of respect for him. I know he’s making more money now for less toil, but it still feels as though he never got his proper farewell from wrestling. He refuses to acknowledge the company or better yet the fans who made him what he is today and is now reduced to making horrifying crap-tacular garbage Disney movies.
Wow, how can anybody knock Rock’s movies as “craptacular garbage” when the business he left behind fits that description for most people? To anybody that isn’t a blind wrestling mark, it’s pretty obvious that he’s in a much better place in his life now. As for him not getting a proper sendoff, didn’t his final few matches feel like closure to you? After he beat Austin, he came out the next night and said something like “The Rock has done it all in this business. It’s over.” Sounds like closure to me. And he even did a couple of matches after that to try and help the company out by putting people over.
And as for Ric Flair, are you serious? The guy that retired at least ten years after he should have. The guy that couldn’t even pull off basic moves by the time he retired. The guy that still has his nose stuck up HHH’s ass every time he speaks in public. More importantly, the guy that would be in the poor house if Vince McMahon didn’t bail him out. I think the confusion here is that you are thinking about “Ric Flair” the character, and not Richard Fliehr the man.
Flair the wrestler got a classy sendoff, which he has managed to cheapen by doing this angle with Chris Jericho, but the question that Scott was responding to was in regards to the real world. In the real world, Flair still has to humiliate himself to make money, like those recent clips of him fighting a guy in a bear suit. The fact is most people in the business end up embarassing themselves, because they can never walk away. That’s why people like Rock and Trish stand out. They both retired at the same age(30), having pretty much done everything they could accomplish. They didn’t stick around past their peak, so they didn’t have to tarnish their images. And they are both still in demand, because they have the looks and charisma to succede without the WWE machine. They both seem like classy people, which is somewhat rare in wrestlers, and I’m sure is a contributing factor to their continued success.
The sad thing is even if your just talking about people that are happy after leaving the business, it’s still a small list. RVD, as one guy mentioned, seems to fit the bill. Bret Hart has taken a long time to get there, but he does seem more well adjusted then many of his peers. Unfortunatley, he’s still a mark for himself, and occasionally has moments where he still embarasses himself. And if you want to talk about older stars, you have to give credit to Warrior and Savage, regardless of what you think of them. They are the only two guys that haven’t been reduced to being talking heads for WWE documentaries, yet they still get alot of attention. And neither guy is hurting for cash, and outside of Warrior’s anti-gay comments a few years ago, neither one of them has been in the news for negative reasons, unlike someone like Hogan.
That’s why Cena better hope he doesn’t eat his words. I know he’s a company man, so maybe he’s just saying what Vince tells him too. But the more and more he mentions Rock, the more bush league he looks. And now that he’s also calling out people that do steroids, he is really setting himself for a big fall.
The Rock needs a proper farewell? After watching wrestlers have to crawl back and abuse their bodies because they either don’t know how to do anything else or didn’t manage their finances properly to begin with (Flair?), The Rock left on his own terms with his body intact and a movie career waiting for him. Sure, he’s not making Casablanca out there, and no one is ever going to mistake him for a Phillip Seymour Hoffman, but there’s still a healthy market for those crap-tacular garbage Disney movies, and he’s profiting.
I applaud him for getting out while he could. The Rock doesn’t -need- wrestling anymore.
Dwayne Johnson, to me, is more over now than he ever was as a wrestler. He can do cheesy movies, and still be able to be the character he was that made all the money.
If it hadn’t been for cancer, Gilda Radner probably would have stayed in the limelight with her movies too, even if some of them were considered lackluster.
Point I’m making is that I’d almost wanted to see the remake of Witch Mountain just because of Johnson’s character and promos in the movie. The man knows comedy, and hell if something did go wrong – he probably could make a killing on the stand-up comedy circuit.
Hell, like a Robin Williams – he could actually think about doing “stand up” now. Catchphrases are owned by WWE, but not the character and intesnty Dwayne Johnson brought to the Rock character.
As for getting divorced – as long as he doesn’t end up dead from something tragic other than a plane crash, a car crash, etc.. (What I’m saying here if he dies to some freak accident and not by his own hands type of accident) – then I say the man has a happy ending away from the business.
Totally unrelated, but:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFl-_hscJJE&feature=related
Paul Heyman more or less spells out why everything in WWE sucks now: Vince vetoes and changes all of creative’s ideas constantly just to say that he can, b/c he’s all about competition even if it’s with himself. Creative all hate their jobs b/c of this, and just repeat what Vince already changed everything to.
We all figure the product will continue to be shit laced with occasional greatness until Hunter takes over (maybe), but I think that really is the reality.
Guys like The Rock, Goldberg are success because they can leave wrestling and save their money.
But guys like Ric Flair, who SHOULD HAD walked away from wrestling years ago, still shows up and slaves himself to McMahon. For example getting a beatdown from Jericho. Flair retired yet he can’t even stay away for a year. Flair embarrassed himself last Monday. And Flair is too stupid too realize McMahon never really liked him. The biggest rib IMO is getting demoted to Midcard after Flair’s title loss to Bret in 1992.
For posters who say they lost respect for Dwayne Johnson, don’t hate him cause he can move on and make money. And he didnt have to show up last year at the HOF thing. But he did, but yet some people forget that. I remember years ago The Rock was on David Letterman and he was still under contract with the WWE. Letterman called him Mr Johnson and only talked about his movie. Never about Wrestling. Thats when you know Rock made it.
I don’t have a lot to say just count me as on the “Rock is a bigger star and in a better place now than he ever was or COULD EVER BE as a wrestler” camp.
Wrestling is a cool idea when you’re young but every single one of them should be planning for the day when they can permanently walk away and be something besides a wrestler. Too many don’t and wind up pretty sad stories.
I’ve loved Wrestling since I was a kid but in real life
Headlining a corny Disney movie > Headlining WrestleMania
every single time.
So far it’s the happy ending of happy endings as far as wrestlers go.
Can we show love to The Coach getting a decent gig on ESPN??? Name another ‘rasslin’ announcer who has been able to cross over to a mainstream like job? Craig DeGeorge comes to mind, but he didn’t have the WWF run like Coach. And Coach must really love his new co-workers looking him up on YouTube to see all his classic spots getting punked by The Rock.
Tony Schiavone is up there as well:
“Schiavone now is in the extremely rare position of being the morning sports anchor for both WDUN in Gainesville and WSB-AM in Atlanta simultaneously, even though the two stations have different owners (WDUN has a partnership with Cox Communications, which owns WSB-TV and WSB-AM. WSB-TV’s weather staffers broadcast weather on WSB-AM). Schiavone also does morning sports reports for WHIO-AM and WHIO-FM in Dayton, Ohio. Additionally, Schiavone is a writer for the Georgia Bulldogs Radio Network and produced the Best of the Bulldogs, which won the AP Award for Best Sports Program in 2004.[4] Schiavone owns his own radio production company, Blind Dog Sports.”
The Genius had the best dropkick in the biz, Lanny Poffo was incredibly gymnastic, check out his dropkick on the outside of the ring on Hogan on SNME.